Weekend Rushdie roundup

June 25th, 2007 by Monitor

The Sir Salman storm continued apace over the weekend, with too many stories for MWW to comment on. Most notably, an Iranian newspaper epitomised the paranoid it’s-all-about-us mindset when it accused the Queen of paying Rushdie £500,000 to write The Satanic Verses

The insult of the English Queen for honouring a knighthood on Salman Rushdie has sent the clear message that from the point of view of England and its Queen, Rushdie’s act is a great and praiseworthy service to the slowly vanishing English Empire which needs to be acknowledged.

This act can be seen as a cover-up to distract the public’s attention from the sexual scandals of royal princes and princesses who are infamous and detested even among the English population, a population who cannot wait for the end of this hated monarch regime which stinks of the Middle Ages.

Funny to hear Islamists mentioning the Middle Ages pejoratively, especially since that is the era to which they want the world to return.

A group of Islamabad traders upped the bounty on Rushdie by offering around £82,000 to anyone who beheads him, and the Pakistan government renewed calls to withdraw the honour. This time they are claiming that the award breaks UN resolution 1624 which call on members to “enhance dialogue and broaden understanding” as a means to preventing “the indiscriminate targeting of religions and cultures”.

Once again: it’s all about us.

Here in the UK there were demonstrations outside the Regents Park mosque, led by Anjem Choudary. Protesters attacked photographers and burned flags, photographs etc. Placards read “god curse the queen”, and one leader explained that Rushdie deserved to be attacked.

The idiot Lord Ahmed continued to dig himself into a hole from which it is unlikely he will ever emerge.

Muhammed “Boo-Hoo” Bari confirmed that the government made the right decision when it spurned the MCB. He wrote to 500 mosques around the country:

Muslims can only see this action as an attempt to create deep offence to Muslims and divert their attention from contributing to community cohesion in these challenging times.

So it was a breath of fresh air to see the Sunday papers speaking up for reason and sanity. Nick Cohen, and Andrew Anthony gave robust defences in The Observer, and in The Telegraph Jenny McCartney reminded the ragers that anger is a choice.

David Thompson makes clear that the “compromise” position adopted by, among others, Shirley Williams (see Ophelia Benson’s comment on her Question Time appearance), is both logically and morally dubious:

As the audience applause for Williams demonstrated, this is a remarkably common assumption – that the most “fair” and “even-handed” position is halfway between homicidal thuggery and calm argument, or halfway between intellectual freedom and a visceral fear of speaking. Any other position is, supposedly, unreasonable or “extreme”.

Absolutely. We cannot give an inch to these murderously puerile thugs – because there isn’t an inch to give.

And along with not giving them an inch it’s crucial that we keep explaining to them and to the fans of inch-giving why we are not giving them an inch and why they have no right to an inch and why they have no legitimate grievance about their non-receipt of an inch. We have to keep explaining loudly and softly, briefly and at length, rudely and politely, and always lucidly. We have to keep on and on and on doing it until they get the point. ‘No inch is forthcoming because you have no, repeat no, legitimate claim to an inch. Now go away.’

It was from Ms Benson’s site that I, as one does in these matters, clicked on a link, found myself somewhere else, then somewhere else and got to that shining example of reason Islamophobia Watch, the no-comments-allowed blog written by some woolly-minded touchy-feely nutcase under two names, which links us to a letter from ‘Dr’ Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the MCB, to MCB Affiliates. Here’s a bit of it:

I am writing to you today on an issue of concern that is currently affecting not only the Muslim community in Britain but also Muslims across the world. The Muslim Council of Britain is disturbed at the deliberate political decision to confer knighthood to Salman Rushdie, the author of the sacrilegious book Satanic Verses He vilified our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and caused deep hurt to Muslims everywhere. Muslims can only see this action as an attempt to create deep offence to Muslims and divert their attention from contributing to community cohesion in these challenging times.

Reasoned, don’t you think? A ‘deliberate political decision’? Our politicians deliberately court this type of organisation because it’s convenient to have the ‘voice of Islam’ in one convenient place. And after this insult to the political process? They’ll continue to court this organisation. Of course. Then we get ‘sacrilegious book’ and that he ‘vilified’ the prophet (sbuh) and ‘caused deep hurt’ (my italics) to Muslims. Bah! Need I go on . . .?

and click on the section labelled 06.30-07.00, the VERY FIRST THING you hear is the announcer reporting a link ( from the CPS ) between so-called honour killings” and muslim trrorist loonies, with the expectation that the numbers of women wasted will increase. It can be heard in full, after about a minute-and-a-half.
With a CPS official (Nazir Afzal!) speaking …

BUT, if you try to get more details via their internal search engine, you get a pointer that leads to a suspiciously blank page.